Centre back delighted the team stayed in the game
- Christopher Schindler reviews 1-0 win over Aston Villa- Defender delighted as team bounces back from Newcastle defeat
- German praises Hefele & Coleman's performances
Defender Christopher Schindler praised the way that the Town team stayed in the game against a good Aston Villa side to win through Tommy Smith’s second-half set-piece goal.
Like his teammates and Head Coach David Wagner, the 26 year-old German was keen to respond immediately to a rare home defeat at the hands of Newcastle United and hailed a ‘massive’ three points tonight when speaking to htafc.com post-match.
“Yes, I think it was really lucky for us to bounce back after this unlucky defeat (on Saturday).
“It was a totally different game today; to be fair, we expected it to be a bit different. We had to react to the way that Aston Villa played, which they did quite well, and in the end this was an important, massive three points.”
The Terriers changed their style during the interval in the face of a high Villa pressing game, going more direct to exploit the space in behind the away defence.
Chris explained: “It was a bit like Newcastle in that we had to find the spare man in space. We dropped a little deeper to try and find these spaces, but it didn’t happen. They pressed us quite high and made it difficult for us to find solutions on the grass.
“We made some bad decisions in the first-half and provided them with some good situations. We were lucky in the one situation where they hit the crossbar.
“At half-time we talked about how important it was to stay in the high by keeping a clean sheet. If we do this, we know we have the quality to score in our team.
“In the second-half, we were better. We played more direct to avoid their pressing and scored a good goal. Because they played high, they offered us space behind their defensive line. A lot of long balls didn’t find the target, but some were quite good and it made it hard for them to continue their game. We kept them away from our goal.
“We have this in the squad. We played like this at Burton away and got an ugly win. Sometimes the opponent forces you to play a different style and we have enough different players to adapt like this. We played in the moment and the substitutions allowed us to put more pressure on the opponent, which is one of the biggest qualities of this team.”
The Terriers also kept an important clean sheet, with Christopher praising the performance of fellow centre back Michael Hefele.
“We always try to keep a clean sheet, of course! It’s not always possible and being two goals down so early against Newcastle made it very difficult. As I said, we wanted to stay in the game today.
“Michael and I understand each other better from game to game and he did a really good job today, as did the whole squad. Our players like to defend and they did a great job. We pressed them whenever possible and that made it easier for us in the back line.”
Schindler also praised ‘keeper Joel Coleman, who kept a fourth clean sheet in just his sixth start for the Club with Danny Ward (thigh) injured.
“I think Joel deserves the clean sheet tonight, because I think he is one of the players who has improved the most. I think he needed to be braver when I first came here and the way he has improved has been really good. I know today he had a few problems, but these are the situations you learn from. He fought through the game, caught some good balls and made some good stops.”
The goal came from a set-piece routine, with Aaron Mooy’s pull-back fired home by Tommy Smith. Christopher believes that set piece ingenuity is important given the makeup of Town’s squad.
“We don’t have the biggest squad or the tallest players and we saw in the first-half how they reacted from the corners. It can be quite risky, but we knew it was possible to score a goal out of a set piece and it decided the game.
“I’m not sure if Tommy wanted to hit it there, but he has good quality! In the end, we have another three points, which is all that counts.”
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